Death Bringer
by silenceia
Summary: If she'd known what it meant to be the Mistress of Death, Hariel Potter never would have taken the Hallows. Now a deal with Death got her stuck in a different world where way too many parties are way too interested in her powers. Not to mention the assassin she keeps running into... fem!HarryxBucky
1. Chapter 1: Hariel Potter

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

 **Chapter One: Hariel Potter**

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ-

"Hello Death," Hariel Rose Potter greets. She knows she is dreaming, but as Dumbledore once told her: _Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?_

Death doesn't answer her. He isn't one for small talk, even uttering a greeting is considered tedious.

"Why are you here?" she asks warily.

"You called for me," he answers.

Hariel frowns. "I did?" she inquires. Again, she receives no answer. Death doesn't like to repeat himself. "Please tell me why I called you," she requests softly. Harry knows she could demand answers, being the Mistress of Death, but she has never been one for throwing her authority around. She didn't even like to order around Kreacher, back when he was still alive.

"You wish to be released from your position," Death answers impassively.

"I do," she answers. "Immortality isn't for me."

Even now, fifty years after the war, Harry looks only seventeen years old. She'd stayed in the Wizarding World for about twenty years, long enough to see Teddy grow up and get married, long enough to spoil her quasi-niece and nephew Rose and Hugo Weasley rotten. She'd seen Hermione take the world by storm, squashing centuries-old pureblood traditions and making the world a better place for muggleborns, house elves, goblins, and many more.

But Harry hadn't been able to stay and watch more. She couldn't hide behind glamours forever. So she'd finally resigned from her position as Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and gone on to travel the world, only returning for short infrequent visits for memorable events: Ron and Ginny playing for England in the Quidditch World Cup, Teddy's graduation from the Auror Academy, Hermione's inauguration as the first muggleborn Minister of Magic.

It hurt. All of them growing older while she stayed young. It had always been Harry's dream to have a family, to grow old with her husband and friends, and one day fall asleep surrounded by her grandchildren, ready for her next great adventure. Instead, she spent years travelling around the world, searching for a way to permanently destroy the Deathly Hallows that kept following her around. She'd tried everything, except giving them to someone else. That was the one thing she would not do. Hariel would not wish this burden on anyone else.

Even dying was no escape. And hadn't that been a surprise, when she'd been shot straight through the heart when a feud between two wizarding gangs escalated, right in the streets of Novosibirsk. She'd woken up in a muggle morgue, hours later, and walked away. Only when she'd arrived home had she broken down.

Having a family of her own had not been possible.

"There must be a way to free me," she finally says. "Otherwise you would not have come to me."

"There is," Death replies. "But it is not without a price."

"Name it," Hariel answers resolutely.

"For every year that you have been my Mistress, you must spend a year serving me," Death responds.

"Oh," she answers faintly. The feeling leaves her legs and she has to sit down. Thankfully, there is a seat nearby, as they are currently in the familiar train station of King's Cross. "Fifty years?" Harry asks, silently despairing.

By the time those years were over, all her loved ones would be old and grey. And Harry would still be a teenager.

"Would I," she has to pause and clear her throat, her voice is too rough. "Would I age while serving you?"

"You will age only once you have completed your servitude," Death tells her impassively, though Harry likes to imagine that there is a hint of compassion in his voice.

She'd have to spend fifty more years alone, and she'd still be a teenager by the time her friends would die of old age. Hariel doesn't think she can endure another half decade of watching all her loved ones grow older and become frail and weak. It was bad enough to see Professor McGonagall's health decline until she died at ninety-five years of age.

Would Molly and Arthur Weasley be the next ones to die, being ninety-nine and ninety-eight years old, respectively?

"I can't stay here, if I am to take you up on your deal," Harry finally says after a long pause. "It's- I can't watch all of them grow old and die."

"Then you may serve me in another world," Death tells her. "But you will never come back, and such magic demands a sacrifice of you."

She resists the urge to break into hysteric laughter. A different world, really? What's next, time-travel? Merlin, she thought she'd seen it all - an idiotic assumption, given how often life has proven her wrong - but this takes the cake. Hariel doesn't think she can take any more. Death must sense this as well, as she feels the dream dissolve around her. But his parting words echo in her mind long after she wakes up.

" _When you are ready, walk through the Veil."_

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ-

The first time the Asset sees her is in London, on the first of January 1960, after the completion of a mission. He is crossing the deserted snow-covered London Bridge in the dead of night when a person appears out of thin air six feet above the surface of the bridge, only to crash down in a heap.

If he had been anyone else, he'd have rubbed his eyes and thought that his mind was playing tricks on him. But he isn't, and so he doesn't.

He is the Asset. If he thinks he saw something then he did see it.

Drawing his SIG-Sauer P49 and levelling it at the unknown threat, he stalks forward with single-minded focus, unstoppable and unyielding. If the unidentified party proves to be a threat to HYDRA, they will be executed.

His sharp eyes make out more details in the dim flickering light of the street lamps as he approaches. He determines the other party to be female, about 5'4". Her clothing consists of tight fitting pants, a black leather jacket, and combat boots. Her hair appears to be black and curly. Her body lies there unmoving, her back to him.

She isn't built like a fighter, though she is dressed ready for combat. Her jacket looks durable, it might well be bulletproof; and he cannot identify the leather's origin. Her footwear, too, is of unknown make and material.

He compares her description to the profiles of persons of interest he has memorised. There are no matches.

He stops within a distance of two feet of her and levels the gun at her head when she twitches. She makes a soft noise of distress and first curls tighter in on herself before she slowly starts working herself to her feet. The Asset studies her every movement and deduces that she must be injured, for she moves slowly and insecurely. She has yet to take notice of him.

He deems her to be of no immediate threat to him. But he will neutralise her anyway for the secrecy of his mission. The world needs him to do it. So Hydra can give mankind the freedom it deserves. Sacrifices must be made. There are to be no witnesses of his existence.

But he needs to find out her identity beforehand.

"Who are you," he demands.

A small gasp escapes the woman and she whirls around to face him, only to slip on a patch of ice. She nearly falls over but manages to catch herself on the bridge's railing. The flickering light falls on her face - young, aristocratic features, pale skin. A strand of black hair dislodges as she looks around wildly and a faded lightning-bolt shaped scar on her forehead is revealed. But most notable are her eyes. They are almost colourless, in the dim light they look silver.

She's blind.

"I can't see," she whispers weakly, echoing his thoughts. Her hands helplessly flit about her face, waving before her eyes, touching her eyelids. "Merlin, is _this_ the sacrifice?" Her voice is horrified, not unlike when his previous target uttered his name when he realised who came for his life.

But he doesn't need to kill her now. She is no threat and her blindness ensures that she cannot divulge his description. The only thing that remains to be found out is the nature of her appearance.

"Your name," he reminds her. Her head snaps around to his general direction.

"Hariel," she whispers. "Potter. Please, can you tell me where I am?"

He ignores her question to interrogate her further. Her name is unfamiliar; he needs to find out more. "Where did you come from?" he demands, already contemplating the merit of taking her with him. She is not his mission. But HYDRA might be interested in her.

"I don't know what happened," she answers, obviously distraught. Her hand clutches the bridge's railing so hard her knuckles turn white. "Why is it so cold? Is that snow? What day is it today? And please, _please,_ where are we?" she asks desperately.

He discards the notion of taking her to HYDRA. She has no information. She is no person of interest and she has nothing to do with his mission. And he is on a schedule.

With heavy steps, the Asset stalks past her and leaves the girl behind, ignoring her pleas for him to wait and answer her questions. He hears her scramble after him, only to fall over with a muffled cry.

Later, at the HYDRA base, his memory is wiped of the encounter and he forgets all about the girl named Hariel Potter.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ-

Two years later, they meet again. By then, Harry has almost forgotten about her first encounter in this new world, the man who left her, blind and vulnerable, to fend for herself without even telling her that she was in the middle of London.

In the past two years, she has managed to figure out when and where she is - in a parallel world similar to her own, but without magic, and way back in the past.

She has acquired this world's Grimmauld Place No. 12 and fixed and warded the house that had long stood empty. Due to her blindness, it wasn't easy. Thankfully, wizards have long since developed spells for orientation in the dark - back when she'd lead the DMLE, she'd even made them a mandatory part of Auror training. There are also a great many spells for gleaning information from one's surroundings. Harry didn't know them all, but Hermione had helped her pack three libraries worth of spell books. She can't read her books anymore, but luckily, Hermione once taught her a spell that makes books read themselves out loud. It's a bothersome method and Harry would kill for a spell to convert written English into braille, but it works for now.

To compensate for her lack of eyesight, Harry now releases continuous bursts of magic, and the feedback shows her her surroundings in front of her inner eye - sort of like how a bat uses ultrasonic sounds for echolocation. She can't see colours that way - and Merlin, she misses colours, so much! - but it's a hundred times better than any other method she has tried, especially since she can do it wandlessly. By now, it has become second nature to see things this way.

She hasn't tried to fix her eyes or made herself an artificial one, like Moody once had. Magic had demanded her sight as its sacrifice, and Harry doesn't want to find out what will happen if she tries to cheat magic itself.

Travel is another problem. Apparition requires a clear image of where one wants to go. The only places she can apparate to now are previously set up Apparition Ports. A Floo Network obviously doesn't exist and she doesn't see the point in setting one up, not that she has any idea how to do something like that in the first place. And since she never really got the hang of Portkey-making, she mostly travels by broom or flying carpet - it hadn't been fun working out how to fly blindly, but a rather complicated version of the _Point Me_ -Spell had helped. For longer journeys, she has to rely on trains, busses, ships, and airplanes. Which isn't comfortable at all in 1962.

But fixing the house and working out ways of seeing and traveling aren't the only things she's done, not by a long shot. No, she still has to serve Death.

As a soul reaper. Oh, the irony. Half a century after the Horcrux Hunt, Harry once again has to hunt down souls.

Curiously enough, dead souls are the one thing her blind eyes can see - they look and behave a lot like the ghosts back in Hogwarts, only they have more substance. Harry can touch them, too - and they can touch her. Can hurt her. Thankfully, the Deathly Hallows allow her to subdue and avoid them if necessary. Still, it isn't a risk-free job.

Her work involves a lot of traveling. When a job starts, she feels this pull in her chest that guides her. Once she arrives wherever her destination is, she has to wait. Sooner or later, someone or a lot of someones lose their life in the place she was led to. That's when she comes in. Her job is to convince the souls to go to the afterlife - either with words or by banishing them with the Elder Wand. If there are too many, she uses the Resurrection Stone to summon souls from the afterlife to help her.

Some souls are accepting of their having to move on. Some turn violent and attack her. Most are just indifferent to the fact that they just died. Regardless of their reaction to their death, Hariel has to convince them to move on, by any means possible.

After the job is done, she returns to her lonely home, until the pull comes again. Sometimes, that takes weeks, other times, she doesn't even bother apparating home.

Harry isn't quite sure what the point of her work is. She knows Death would have no trouble doing all of it himself - he has done so for millennia already. Her best guess is that she has to do _something_ as compensation for the years of immortality, even if it is completely unnecessary and painful for her.

This time it's particularly bad. The pull in her chest feels cold which means that it'll be a violent death, maybe even a murder. She hates those times, because there is one rule she cannot break: Harry isn't allowed to interfere in the final fate of mortals. She can't save a child from dying of hunger, can't prevent a fire from consuming a hospital, can't stop a terrorist from killing dozens of innocents, and it goes against her every instinct. But whenever she tries to stop what's happening, her body refuses to move, her breath cuts off as if she is being choked, and her very blood turns so cold, it might as well be liquid ice. And still, it doesn't hurt as much as letting the deaths happen. Though the pain becomes more of a background throb as time goes on.

Today, she is led to a large mansion in Paris. From the feel of the pull, she guesses that there's about an hour left until it happens. More than enough time for her to walk in and find the right place, in theory.

Go in, wait a bit, do the job, go home. Her work is disgusting in its simplicity.

Hariel walks straight into the estate, opens the front door of the mansion with a quick _Alohomora,_ and walks right in. She has long since learnt that no one ever notices her when she is on a job - it's like she's under a super-powered Notice-me-not-charm. There isn't even a need for the Invisibility Cloak. She does use an obscuring spell though, since she doesn't want to show up on security cameras - she has no idea if those have been invented already and she doesn't really have anyone she can ask.

The mansion turns out to be a right maze. More than once Harry walks into dead ends, but eventually, with about ten minutes to spare from the feel of it, she finds the room where the deaths will happen. It's apparently a dining room, a large table is set with all kinds of elaborate dishes and way too much cutlery to make sense of. Judging from the number of seats… five people will dine here. And most likely die.

Merlin, she hates this job. Absentmindedly, she fiddles with the charm bracelet on her left wrist - a farewell gift from her closest friends, the ones she told where she was going. A book charm from Hermione, a chess piece from Ron, a broom charm from Ginny. Luna had given her a… thing that she swore was a Crumple-Horned Snorkack charm, Neville had given her a miniature _Mimbulus Mimbletonia._ From Teddy, she'd been given a wolf charm. There are magical charms on the bracelet as well, for protection, happiness, health. It's her most cherished possession.

With a sigh, she hides herself behind a couch. Just because it is hard to notice her doesn't mean it's impossible, after all.

And then she waits. Three minutes later, she hears people approach and feels them enter the room.

That's another thing. She can feel people, their - well, their life energy? Their essence? Their aura? It's hard to grasp, but she can feel people's presences with a sort of sixth sense. It's either a gift from Death or her magic compensating for her lack of sight. Either way, it's useful.

Harry hears the five people sit down. Two middle-aged men, she guesses. A younger woman. And two teenagers, twins, judging from the similarity of their presences. A family sitting down for dinner. Bile rises in Harry's throat at the thought of them dying, but she forces it down so she can concentrate. The faster this is over, the better.

Suddenly, the windows of the room shatter with a loud bang; and almost immediately, a man, or rather his soul, appears in Harry's otherwise useless vision. She hears the screams of the rest of the family and _feels_ someone swing into the room through the window, but she focuses on the dead man in front of her. With a swish of the Elder Wand, she banishes him to the afterlife, right as two of the screaming voices abruptly cut off. Two more souls materialise. Harry inches around the couch so she can take aim. The soul of the woman is quickly banished, but the remaining man's soul is obviously panicking and running around the room. Harry brushes her hand over the Resurrection Stone in her pocket and the ghosts of two men appear to hold the soul down.

Two shots sound. Two more souls materialise - two teenaged boys, at most twelve years old. She was right, they were twins. Their eyes fall on her - the souls always notice her after a while. It's like she's a beacon to them.

"Are we dead?" one twin asks in French.

"We were shot, moron, of course we're dead," the other mutters. "Are you Death?" he asks Hariel.

She gives him a sardonic smile and answers in the same language. "I just work for him. You should move on now."

"Will it hurt?" Twin number one asks, sounding scared. Harry shakes her head and forces a smile on her face.

"No. It's just like going home after a long day," she says gently. "Go on, now."

The twins grab each other's hand. A moment later they are gone. She sighs and turns to the remaining soul that's currently being held down by the helpers she summoned. "You can't do this!" he screams. "Don't you know who I am?!"

"Everyone's equal before Death," Harry replies tiredly and lifts the Elder Wand.

And freezes when the cold barrel of a gun is held against her temple.

 _What._

 _The hell._

"You shouldn't be here," a hoarse voice says. It takes her a moment to figure out that he's talking to her. "Who are you."

She knows this voice. She _knows_ this voice.

He still feels like a violent storm in winter to her sixth sense.

"You," she whispers. "You were there. You were there on the bridge in the snow. What are you doing _here_?"

A pause. A click. A loud crack.

Lights out.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ-

The dead girl lies there motionlessly, a puddle of blood spreading under her head. The Asset stares down at her, commits her face to his memory.

She said they'd already met somewhere. He's never seen her before.

And she was blind, so how would she know?

It doesn't matter anymore. He killed her.

But she shouldn't have been here. According to his information, the French Defence Minister should have dined with his family in private, without visitors. A blind female teenager was never listed among the known acquaintances of the family.

He'd report the aberration and subsequent death of the unknown girl.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ-

Hariel opens her eyes to see the familiar surroundings of King's Cross. Her eyes widen as her eyes take in the scenery.

It had been two years since she lost her eyesight. Her echolocation spells and the seeing-souls-thing are only a poor replacement for seeing actual colours.

"I died, huh?" she muses. "Again."

She sighs and looks around, her eyes greedily drinking in the light, the colours. King's Cross is mostly filled with grey and brown and black, but to her, it's the most beautiful scene she has seen in a long time, precisely because she can actually _see_ it.

"Hariel," Deaths deep voice says from behind her. She turns around.

He still looks the same. A tall figure, swathed in black fabric, a hood obscuring his face completely. Harry is quite sure that she should be glad she can't see his face. There are probably consequences to looking Death in the eyes.

"Hello," she replies. "I didn't think working for you would be this hard."

He doesn't answer.

"It's lonely," she tells him softly. "And I can't make friends if I already know that I'm going to lose them later."

Still no answer.

"And I still have forty-eight years to go," Harry sighs. Death stays silent, and suddenly Harry is filled with rage. "What's the point?!" she yells. "Why do I have to suffer? I never wanted immortality in the first place! Finding all the Hallows was an accident, why do I have to pay for something that I never wanted, that I put in _every_ effort to get rid of?! Haven't I sacrificed enough? And _you_ , you only showed up with a way out after _fifty_ years! A bloody half-century, and your grand solution takes _another_ half-century, except I'm supposed to be miserable all the time! What's the bloody point?!"

He just stands there motionlessly, taking in Harry's screams with no reaction at all.

"I had to leave everyone I loved!" Harry rages. "I had to _leave_ them." A sob breaks free.

Merlin, she'd _left them._ She had LEFT them! Her knees hit the ground and she hunches over, shaken by sobs. "W-Why me?! Why the hell does it always have to be me?! Just let me move on already! I don't want this anymore!"

Around them, King's Cross starts to dissolve - Harry is waking up.

She wishes she wouldn't.

The last thing she hears is Death's deep voice echoing.

"You will not be alone forever."

She opens her sightless eyes to the room she died in. The lone soul she hadn't managed to banish is gone, Harry guesses that Death took care of it.

With a choked sob, she curls in on herself and starts to cry, lying among the corpses of the murdered family.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ-

The following day, the murder of the French Minister of Defence and his family is reported in the newspaper. Five deaths in total.

According to the Asset, there should have been six. But the spies of HYDRA can't find any mention of the sixth body that should have been in that room.

The incident in France would be the first to bring attention to the mystery of Hariel Potter.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ-

Another year passes. Harry does her job mindlessly, no longer trying to defy her fate. She's so, so tired of fighting and death - both the event and the entity.

A four year old girl in Spain has just fallen down the stairs and broken her neck. Now her soul stares down at her dead body in confusion, then looks up at Hariel.

"Are you an angel?" she asks innocently in Spanish. "You're very pretty."

Hariel wants to cry. But instead, she forces a smile and replies in the same language. "I don't know if I am, but I'm here to help you."

"Can you make me better again?" the child asks. "Mama will be angry if I'm not in time for dinner."

"I'm sorry," Harry answers gently. "I can't make you better."

"Oh," the girl says softly. "Does that mean I'm going to heaven, like Abuelo?"

"You'll see your Abuelo again, I'm sure," Harry tells her. "Do you want to go now?"

The girl nods. Harry gives her one last smile, then she waves her wand and the soul vanishes.

When she's gone, Harry furiously wipes at her eyes. Children are always the worst.

In the distance, she hears the mother call for her child. With a swish of her wand, Harry makes any spilt blood disappear, then she arranges the girl's body into something that looks a little less brutal, and closes her eyes.

It doesn't change the fact that the little girl is dead, but perhaps it'll be less traumatising for the mother. In any case, it makes Hariel feel a tiny bit better, which is horrible of her. A little girl just _died_ , and here she is, thinking that anything she does could make _anything_ better.

There are days when it feels like all these people die just so she'll have a job to do. Like they die for her. It makes her feel like a monster.

Hariel disapparates before the mother finds the body. That's… not something she has a right to witness. And there is no comfort she can offer to a woman who just lost her daughter.

It's only an hour after she has arrived home that she has to head out again. By now, she has set up warded apparition ports on every continent, so that at least spares her the trouble of weeks-long boat trips or rattling and uncomfortable airplanes - muggle transportation in 1963 is not half as comfortable as it used to be where she comes from. Oh, for the rich, traveling can be quite luxurious, but Harry really sees no need to acquire a private jet or a yacht. That would just be… such a Malfoy thing to do. Bah. _No_.

With a sigh, Harry grabs her travelling bag, shrinks it, and in quick succession apparates to her various apparition ports until she has found the one closest to where she needs to be - in Hamburg, Germany. It isn't the right city, so she finds the central station and takes a train going in the direction she's being pulled in. And so, Hariel Potter finds herself in West Berlin.

It's not… pleasant. The Berlin Wall was built only a year before, and the atmosphere isn't pleasant. But it's nothing compared to when she crosses over into East Berlin. There are soldiers everywhere, guarding the Berlin Wall. Once she leaves the Wall behind, they become fewer, but their presence is still noticeable. From what Harry can tell with her echolocation, the streets are in poor condition, the people are used to either keeping their head down or pretending to be happy. Unlike in West Berlin, few cars are on the street, and they are tiny, they stink, and they are _loud._

Hariel can't stand the noise. Ever since she lost her eyesight, she's become more attuned to using her other senses, which means her hearing and sense of smell have become much stronger. In some cases, it backfires on her, unfortunately.

At least there aren't too many of those annoying cars.

It takes her the better part of three hours to make out the building her... job will take place in - "Altes Stadthaus", it's called, or Old City Hall in English. Harry actually saw it once in her old world , though that was a very long time ago. She distantly remembers a large and imposing building with a large tower jutting out from its roof.

Squaring her shoulders, Hariel walks into the building, hidden under Notice-Me-Nots and obscuring charms. She's become more careful ever since that man shot her in Paris, because obviously the magical protection her job offers her is not infallible.

Hariel would use the Invisibility Cloak, but she can't use her echolocation magic from under it. These days, the precious heirloom is only good for hiding while standing still or crouching behind furniture.

Well, like Dumbledore once said: There are other ways of moving about unseen. And Harry knows many of them, though she never quite got the hang of the Disillusionment spell.

But even if she's seen, what's the worst that could happen? She's already unable to die. And she did finally succeed in making a Portkey, though it's only capable of carrying her back home and nowhere else. But it's enough for escaping purposes.

Harry doesn't have to fear anything. And that fact in itself scares her because she is no longer sure if she can still be called human. Her existence is... _unnatural._

Unseen and unheard, she walks through the Old City Hall until she has located the site. From what she can tell, she still has a day to go until the death will happen - and judging from the cold of the pull in her chest, it'll be a violent one. Considering the Old City Hall is where the Council of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic is located, she suspects one of the politicians will be murdered.

And she has to let it happen. It feels so bloody _wrong._

Regardless how she feels, there's nothing she can do about it. So she might as well find a place to set up her tent for the night and at least try to get some sleep - everything will be easier if she is well-rested.

Harry hates herself for thinking that way. But she knows nothing will come of fighting her fate and that of others. It kills her inside to give up, just like that.

Even after half a century, she still feels hardly any different from the seventeen year old that once carried the fate of an entire world on her shoulders. Harry hasn't aged, at all. Not in body and not in mind. She's just a little bit more cautious now, and she has more memories and experiences to draw from. But in essence, she's still a teenaged girl and has been for over fifty years. And she still feels everything with the same intensity that she did back in the day when she was eating snitch-shaped cakes and hunting horcruxes.

Harry leaves the Old City Hall through a side entrance, intent of finding some place to hunker down in. For a moment, she thinks she detected a vaguely familiar energy, but the feeling is gone as soon as it came, so she dismisses it as not important and leaves the Old City Hall behind.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ-

The Asset watches. He has been staking out the building for hours, has noted the routines of people who could get in the way of his mission, has studied the target's habits. He has moved about the Old City Hall unseen for hours until he relocated to a rooftop a short distance away to watch the entrances.

He almost missed the girl exiting the building. Almost, which means she definitely isn't normal, because nothing and no one escapes his attention, especially someone who so obviously doesn't belong in this place. And now that he has noticed her, he can't take his eyes off of her.

She's of average height. Long midnight curls fall down to her waist, untamed. Her skin is pale. He can't clearly see her face through his binoculars, but he can tell she is young, possibly not even in her twenties.

She wears a black leather jacket, blue jeans, and combat boots.

How the hell did he not notice her before? She stands out so much; it's a wonder she hasn't been stopped and arrested by the Stasi yet. She'd be scrutinised for wearing jeans alone, but with that jacket and the combat boots? It's like she _wants_ to be arrested.

And yet, she moves through the streets with ease, and nobody even looks at her. And the way she moves… no one bumps into her, there is no insecurity at all, she doesn't even look at the ground when it's riddled with potholes - it's like her feet know exactly where to step so as to not trip and stumble.

And then there's the fact that she seems oddly familiar, when he's never seen her before. He has memorised countless profiles and pictures, but no one fits her description. It pisses him off, because from what he sees, she _should_ have been on the radar of HYDRA.

And now this unknown is interfering with his mission. Because it can't be a coincidence that she's sneaking around the seat of the government of the German Democratic Republic when that's where his target Hans Hofmann, the Minister of National Defence in the Council of Ministers, would be assassinated tomorrow.

Who does she work for, what is her purpose here, and who is she?

Unseen, the Winter Soldier, as he's now named in certain circles, follows her via the rooftops as she walks along the streets into less populated alleys with shabby apartment buildings until she disappears inside one that looks completely abandoned.

The base of whatever secret service she works for must be located inside. Without hesitation, he drops down from his roof and determinedly leaps on a fire escape. A heard kick against the door and he's inside. He walks down the corridor and reaches the dilapidated wooden stairwell. He can hear the girl walk up, the stairs creaking under her steps. Twice, he hears her open doors, but she closes them without going inside.

Either she forgot where her people's base is located or she's looking for something else.

A third door opens, just one floor below him. A pause, then he hears her huff in frustration and slam the door shut. "Stupid building," she mutters in English with a surprisingly low and husky voice. The British accent tells him where she hails from. "People should have demolished this death trap ages ago. Damn GDR economy!"

So there is no secret base in this building. Then there is no reason for waiting any longer.

The Winter Soldier vaults over the railing and lands directly in front of her. The stairs groan ominously under his heavy landing, but they hold. The girl jumps back two steps until she stands no longer on the steps but on the level ground before the door she just slammed shut seconds ago. A thin stick appears in her hand and points at him.

He studies her. She's even younger than he first thought - no older than eighteen, for sure. High cheekbones; delicate, aristocratic features. And green eyes that are pale, faded, and blind. And yet, she moves as if she could see as clear as day. The Soldier doesn't understand. It irritates him.

" _You_ ," the girl breathes, her sightless eyes wide with recognition. Obviously, she knows just who he is, so she must be part of one of the few organisations aware of his existence.

"Who are you, and who do you work for," he growls out.

Her shocked look is replaced with a confused one. "But you know my name already," she answers. "I've told you my name twice before!"

Beneath his mask, he scowls in irritation. She continues to stare at him. "I'm Hariel Potter. Don't you remember?"

The name is unfamiliar. But given how young she is, she must be new. If she had any experience, she'd have tried to run.

"What are you doing here?" she asks. "Who are you?"

"I ask the questions," the Soldier growls out, an army knife appearing in his hand. The girl named Potter stiffens, straightens her shoulders, and slips into a ready stance. If she had working eyes, she'd have seen his metal arm and tried escaping. Instead, she points her stick at him, her free hand curled into a fist.

"Tell me who you work for," he orders.

The girl's eyes narrow, defiance sparking. "I work for Death," she hisses. _"Expelliarmus!"_

Something slams into him, wrenches the knife from his hand, and throws him back into the stairs, which suddenly break under him and he finds himself crashing down one floor lower. Growling, he pulls his out his gun and fires.

" _Protego Maxima!"_ he hears Potter shout. A moment later, she suddenly runs into his field of vision, red beams of light shooting from her stick. He lifts his metal arm and deflects them, causing her to falter in surprise. He pulls out another knife, runs toward her and brings it down on her neck. She just barely manages to throw herself to the side and rolls over her shoulder, taking a tumble down the stairs. He leaps after her and brings his metal fist down on her, but she rolls to the side again and the stairs fall to pieces under them, causing them to crash two floors down until they both hit the ground floor.

The Winter Soldier shakes off the rubble and gets to his feet on the cement of the ground floor, looking for his opponent. Potter lies among splinters of wood, softly groaning. Her stick is in her hand, broken, only held together by some sort of red-golden thread.

When he steps closer, she tenses and tries to get up again, but then she gasps in pain and stills. Her hand around the stick goes limp and the piece of wood falls to the ground. The Winter Soldier waits for a moment, but she doesn't so much as twitch. He still pulls out a tranquiliser gun and shoots her once in the shoulder. Then he gathers her broken weapon and checks her injuries - nothing serious. A broken left wrist, probably some cracked or bruised ribs, and possibly a concussion.

Done with checking her over, he roughly grabs her wrists and ties them up, then throws her over his shoulder.

He'd finish his job and take her to HYDRA. They'd be very interested in her abilities.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ-

Hariel can't move when she wakes up. One, because her body hurts like hell, and two, she's tied up. However, that doesn't mean she's helpless.

The man who captured her is in the room, and she curses herself for dismissing her instincts so recklessly earlier. She really should have known better after the war and years of service as an auror. Then again, the man is obviously a professional while she's blind and way out of practice. And she really did not expect him to be apparently near indestructible and have the ability to deflect spells with his arm.

By her estimation, no more than a few hours could have passed, but she could be wrong, her mind feels oddly sluggish. Was she drugged? Or maybe it's a head injury? Well, that would wear off eventually, there is nothing to worry about. And in a real emergency, she could still use her emergency portkey. All she'd have to do is say the password. Though that would make completing her job hard, seeing as she'd have no way to return to Berlin.

Harry lets out a small burst of magic. The feedback shows her a small apartment room that's mostly void of furniture, except for a few crates, the mattress she's lying on, and _him,_ sitting near a window and staring out of it. The man who she has now met three times, all of them ending with her on the ground and in one case dead.

Though he doesn't seem to remember that, luckily. Who knows what he would do. It's bad enough already that she's been captured. He has also taken her phoenix feather and holly wand, she can sense its magic on his body.

Unbidden, horror stories of witches that were kidnapped by muggles come to her mind. She suppresses them violently. Really, it's not like she's helpless. And now she has a better idea of what she's dealing with.

Harry is distracted by her painfully throbbing ribs. Forcing herself to focus, she directs magic to the places in her body that cause her the most pain - her wrist and her ribs. Her head aches, too, but that is not something she wants to mess with. She's already taking enough of a risk in healing her bones while having a head injury. But then, she has experience in fixing her bones - she's broken enough of them to practice on.

A sharp gasp escapes her when a rib snaps back into place and starts mending itself. Merlin, what wouldn't she give to reach the small vial of painkillers in her travel bag. Unfortunately, that's in her shrunken bag which is clipped to her charms bracelet, which is disillusioned on her wrist, which is tied to her other wrist behind her back with some material that won't give at all.

Her captor suddenly moves. Harry observes with all her senses as he steps closer and closer. She remains motionless, until a cough wracks her body. It hurts in her dry throat and in her injured ribs, and the cough won't stop. It feels like her throat is being rubbed with sandpaper. She can't breathe right and her eyes tear up.

Suddenly, an arm is around her shoulder and lifts her until she's leaning against _his_ chest, and something is held against her lips. Harry closes her lips in reflex and tries to turn her head away, but something made of cold metal catches her chin and turns it back. Merlin, is that a _metal_ hand? No wonder he could deflect her spells.

"Drink," his hoarse voice orders; and the bottle at her mouth is tipped until cool liquid drips over her lips and down her chin and neck. She finally lets them drop open, the coughs breaking free once more, but some water manages to make its way down her throat. It hurts at first, but soon the coughs stop and she's able to drink normally until the man takes the bottle away.

"Thanks," Harry rasps and aims a weak smile at him. She feels him stiffen at her back, then he grabs her shoulders and lays her back down on the mattress again. She can't help a sharp intake of breath as her ribs are jolted.

The man doesn't offer any comfort and simply returns to his place near the window.

She scolds herself for expecting any kindness from him. The man has already _killed_ her once before. She witnessed him assassinate an entire _family_.

In hindsight, it's so bloody obvious that he's an assassin.

Harry supposes she should be glad that she isn't being treated worse. If she were the captive of a Death Eater or any of her other enemies, she'd already have been tortured. But this man does not seem to be the type to enjoy torture. Actually, he doesn't strike her as evil at all. Dangerous, yes. But not evil.

Small mercies.

Silence fills the room as she closes her eyes and focuses on directing her magic through her body. From time to time, she can feel his eyes upon her, but neither of them speaks. Which suits Harry just fine, the last thing she wants is to be interrogated.

An hour passes like that. Most of Harry's injuries are mended now, though she'll still have to be careful so she doesn't rebreak any bones. The effects of whatever drug were used on her seem to have passed, too. Her head still hurts, but by her standards, that's nothing.

What _isn't_ nothing is the pull in her chest that is steadily growing stronger until it hurts. Which means the death is going to happen in the near future. She needs to make her escape, and soon. Harry doesn't know what will happen if she fails a job, and she doesn't want to find out.

That means she has to free her wrists, retrieve her wand, somehow deal with her captor, and find her way through unfamiliar surroundings. Merlin, it's almost like being young again. Except she is handicapped now. And she doesn't have Hermione and Ron to watch her back now, and she never will again.

The man, the _assassin_ , suddenly stands up. Harry tenses. "Are you going to drug me again?" she asks.

He doesn't bother with answering and instead steps over to kneel beside her. Gloved hands grab her, pull her head to her side awkwardly, and then Harry feels a sharp prick in her neck. Cold liquid seeps into her bloodstream and her body goes limp. But her magic is already working on neutralising the narcotic even as the man steps away, grabs a bag that most likely contains weapons, and leaves with disturbingly light steps.

It takes another seven minutes for Harry to be able to move again. Not that it does her much good. She's still all tied up and blind and hurt.

But somewhere in her mind, Ron's voice echoes, _"HAVE YOU GONE MAD? ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT?!"_ , which kind of puts Harry in a better mood.

With some effort, she manages to flick her bound wrist so that the Elder Wand shoots from its disillusioned holster, and with a seeker's instinct she grabs it. _"Relashio!"_ Harry snaps, and whatever was used to bind her wrists falls off. She works herself back to her feet and stands for a moment, taking inventory of her mental faculties and her physical state. Then she starts mumbling spells - silencing ones on her feet, obscuring spells all over her body though she isn't too hopeful they will work on her captor.

And then she gets moving.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ-

The security of the Altes Stadthaus is no hindrance for the Asset. The personnel responsible for it might as well be blind. No wonder the woman named Hariel Potter was able to infiltrate them.

HYDRA would be most interested in her.

No one sees him as he stalks along the corridors. This isn't the kind of mission where he is meant to be seen. Given how paranoid the officials in this country are, they are sure to blame their political adversaries. No, Hofmann will die in a manner that will clearly indicate assassination, but there will be no hints left as to the culprit.

He locates the target easily. Hofmann is in a meeting with other ministers. The Soldier listens attentively, perhaps this information would be of help to HYDRA. And what helped HYDRA would help the world and bring about peace.

HYDRA is doing the world a great service, after all. And he, the Asset, is their weapon. This is the way things must be, for the good of humanity.

And for the good of humanity, Hofmann must be killed. So he waits patiently, until the target excuses himself. The Asset has studied the habits of his target, he knows the man is going to find a quiet spot to smoke a cigarette. Silently, he follows the man through corridors and hallways.

He shows himself to the man when they reach a more abandoned looking part of the building. Hoffmann takes a step back in surprise at the Soldier's appearance. _"Wer sind Sie?!"_ he demands. _"Sie sind nicht befugt hier zu sein!"_

They are his last words. Terror fills Hofmann's face and cuts off his voice as the Asset draws a knife. The man doesn't even have time to scream. Blood spills on the floor as the Asset slashes the target's throat. With a dull thump, the corpse falls to the ground. The job is done. All that is left now is to vacate the building, retrieve Potter, and return to his rendez-vous point.

The Soldier surveys the scene, then he turns on his heel and marches away. But then he hears something unexpected and whirls around again, drawing a gun in the same motion. And stares.

Hariel Potter's petite form is kneeling beside the corpse, another stick in her hand. He hears her whisper something to the body as she gently closes the man's blank eyes. And for some reason, the gentle gesture strikes something in the Soldier. He swallows drily. Training demands that he pull the trigger and kill the witness. But he can't. His finger won't move.

Potter rises from the ground gracefully, facing him. A sad smile is on her face, and now the Asset's entire body is frozen by that smile. "It's alright," the girl says softly. "He's in a better place now. On his next great adventure."

He can't reply. His body won't move. His voice won't work.

Potter raises the stick in her hand to point at him. " _Accio wand!_ " she exclaims. And from the Asset's pockets, the broken pieces of the stick he took from her before emerge and fly towards her. With uncanny skill, she grabs them out of the air. "Farewell," she says calmly, turns on her heel, and with a crack she is gone.

The Asset later learns he was right. HYDRA really _is_ interested in her abilities, especially when it turns out that a person by her name and description was reported dead about two years ago.

And even later, after his memory has been erased and not even a smidgeon of the confusing feelings Potter's sad smile at him evoked remains, he receives standing orders to capture the woman alive at all costs.

* * *

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ-

* * *

 **A/N: So here's the much requested HP/Avengers crossover! I decided to publish it today to celebrate a very special day to me. Exactly one year ago, I started writing and published my very first chapter that same day. Back then, I never would have guessed that writing would become such an important part of my life. So I'd like to thank all you wonderful readers and reviewers, because while I started writing on a whim, it is thanks to all of you that I realised that I loved it and continued.**

 **Thank you all, and happy writing anniversary to all of us! May there be many more...**

 **silencia20**


	2. Chapter 2: Jack Frost

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

* * *

 _Previously: Hariel Rose Potter, Master of Death, hasn't aged in fifty years. Finally, Death offers her a way out: To regain her mortality, she must serve as a soul collector for fifty more years. She is, however, allowed to do this in another world so she won't have to see her loved ones grow old and die, though she will have to pay a price for that._

 _This price turns out to be the loss of her eyesight. However, she figures out magical ways to compensate for the blindness._

 _Her soul collector job in this new world consists of missions: When she feels a 'pull' in her chest, she follows it. Sometime after arriving at the destination, a death will happen. Harry then has to use the Hallows to banish the souls to the afterlife._

 _Which isn't always a walk in the park, as evidenced by the fact that a certain assassin keeps running into her._

 _But then, would she really be Harry Potter if things were going smoothly for her?_

* * *

 **Chapter Two: Jack Frost**

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ-

Hariel's life continues. The only change is that she is much now more cautious than she was before she met the assassin for a third time.

Once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. Harry knows that well, and while she has become more cautious since the encounter in Paris, now she is actively taking precautions. The first thing she does is fix her broken wand once again with the help of the Elder Wand. The second... it takes a _Confundus_ spell, but she manages to talk an old army veteran in her neighbourhood into giving her self-defense lessons. Furthermore, she reads up on the old auror procedures that Ron and her implemented into the auror training. And she enchants a few dummies to move so she can practice her aim.

Protective and obscuring spells are worked into all of her clothes. Her wardrobe is expanded to contain current fashions that may help her blend into her surroundings. Her jeans and dragon leather jacket aren't exactly inconspicious. Women in dresses don't draw as much attention.

Then again, women under tons of obscuring charms and whatnot usually don't draw attention either and she _still_ got noticed by the assassin, so Harry doesn't hold her breath on the success of the wardrobe changes.

She also trains herself to be aware of her surroundings at all times. Her capture in Berlin could have been avoided if she'd just been a little more trusting of her instincts.

And still, she worries that it won't be enough. She's been in this world for only three years, and she has met the assassin as many times. If the trend goes on... Well. It never hurt anyone to be prepared.

But a year and a half passes, and Harry doesn't run into him again. Still, she refuses to let her guard down. In her experience, that is exactly when things tend to go pear-shaped.

Eventually, though, she concedes that maybe she is being too negative. She'd been in this world for quite some time now, and she hasn't yet done anything for herself, for her own enjoyment. She needs to live a little, she decides. Hermione in her place would have been all over this world already to witness history in the making and study it, to explore what a world without magic looks like. And so, in honour of her long-time best friend, Hariel decides to visit the Stark World Exposition which is being held on the first of January in New York City, 1964. She already left an apparition port in the city on one of her previous jobs, so travel would be no trouble aside from the usual discomfort that apparition entails.

Harry half expects a new job to pop up and keep her from attending the Expo, but nothing of the sort happens. So with a sad smile, because this is the kind of undertaking that she never would have done without Hermione or Luna before leaving her old world, Harry departs.

New York is loud and disorienting. The Stark Expo, which is being held at Flushing Meadows in conjunction with the World's Fair, is even louder and more disorienting. Harry has never liked crowds, and that was before she lost her eyesight. Now... if it weren't for the training she'd been doing, she wouldn't have made it further than ten steps in. There are so many people, and all of them radiate their energy. All of them move all the time, and Harry's usual echolocation spells do her no favours here. She has to resort to activate a _Homenum Revelio_ field around herself. What's more, people keep bumping into her, and when they see her empty eyes, they rapidly apologise, offer her help, try to take her arm to lead her around, and generally treat her like an idiot because apparently being blind means that she must also be deaf, from the way some people talk to her.

"ARE YOU ALRIGHT," a man's voice says in an overly loud and pompous tone. Harry has no doubt that he's using exaggerated gesturing to emphasise his meaning, which strikes her as incredibly stupid considering she can't see. "LET ME HELP YOU." And he attempts to take her arm, but Harry smoothly extracts herself and vanishes into the crowd.

Rinse, repeat. She ought to invest in a pair of sunglasses to hide her eyes. (But what if she picks stupid-looking ones? It's not like she can _see_ whatever she puts one her face!)

Aside from these annoyances, the Expo turns out to be quite interesting. She's already seen things that she doubts anyone in her old world even thought about at this point in time. It amazes her how much further along this world is in terms of technology. And she can't help but think of one of Luna's conspiracy theories. According to her old friend, a cult of clairvoyant witches and wizards existed secretly for the sole purpose of erasing any muggle technology that could lead to the discovery of the magical society. The methods used involved nifflers, old socks, and something Luna called a 'Schnavalix'.

Socks and Schnavalice aside, Harry is fairly sure that such a group with the purpose of keeping the magical world undiscovered at all costs did in fact exist in her old world. Now, witnessing all the inventions, all the progress around her, Harry thinks she might finally have evidence of what her world could have been like, and she feels anger at the thought of selfish wizards halting decades of progress by erasing some of the brightest minds of all times.

Maybe her world had a Howard Stark once. Maybe muggles could have had hovering cars in 1964 like here. But in her world, the only people to succesfully make a muggle vehicle fly had been Sirius and Arthur Weasley.

Harry frowns and leaves that particular exhibit, the man on stage enthusiastically relaying an anecdote about the Hovercar crashing the last time he presented it. She finds herself reminded a bit of the Weasley twins, who never failed to make fun of their own fiascos, as rarely as they occured. The audience ate it up back then, and it does so here now. Mr. Howard Stark certainly knows how to play the crowds.

She finds herself drifting about aimlessly. A lot of the exhibits are made to be visually engaging for the masses, which means most show effects are entirely lost on her. But Harry still enjoys herself. There is a certain charm to this event - to this whole age, really. She's from 2047, where everyone is in a hurry and muggle technology could do anything. Getting to see all this, all the ideas, the enthusiasm, the pioneers... it's special, and Harry is glad she came here.

Eventually, she finds a quieter area. The loud sounds and yelling showmen are absent here. People talk in civilised volumes about whatever the exhibits here are about. Apparently, she has found the area where the real treasures are on display, not just the attractions aimed at the pleasure-seeking masses.

Naturally, because she wouldn't be Hariel Potter if she didn't get into at least a little bit of trouble, this is when a man enters the _Homenum Revelio_ field surrounding her, reeking of alcohol. Harry side-steps him neatly, but the man trips and bumps into her anyway. If it weren't for the training Harry had been doing, she would definitely have fallen over.

"S'ry," the man slurs, but he doesn't sound sorry at all. "You alrigh'? Lemme buy you a dring."

Harry frowns at him. She is fairly sure that she isn't old enough for alcohol in this country. "No," she answers, edging away. "You are drunk, sir."

The man draws closer. Harry wrinkles her nose at his scent. "C'mon, pretty gurl," the man insists. "S'gonna be fun."

"Back off," she answers coolly. "I said no."

"Thing yer too goo' for me, huh?" the man suddenly accuses her loudly. "Yer jus' some blin' girl! Shoulda be thankful someone paid attention to you, ya cripple!"

Harry can feel people turn to watch. Some start whispering. She shifts uncomfortably. Once upon a time, she'd become used to being the centre of attention wherever she went. But that was a long time ago.

"That's enough," an authoritative voice cuts into the drunk man's rambling. "Jared, Bill, remove this man from the premises."

The loudly yelling man is dragged away by what Harry decides must be security personnel. The newcomer turns to her. "Are you alright, Miss?" he asks smoothly.

"I am," Harry answers politely. "Thank you, Mr. Stark."

"Ahh," the man realises. "You must have recognised my voice from the earlier presentation."

She nods. "It was very interesting," she relays with a cautious smile. "I'm enjoying the exposition very much."

With a frown, she notices people crowding around them. "Mr. Stark!" a man shouts. "It's such an honour! I'm Jackson Makepeace, from Makepeace Industries. Would you consider-"

"Janet Brandon," a woman with a sultry voice introduces herself, surreptitiously pushing Harry away. "I must admit, the Stark World Exposition is splendid!"

"Mr. Stark, could you please comment on-" yells someone who must be a reporter.

Stark grabs her Harry's arm and draws her closer to him. "My apologies," he says smoothly. "But the young lady seems to be quite upset, I will escort her somewhere to regain her spirits. Perhaps another time, gentlemen?" Masterfully, he manages to steer Harry out of the crowds.

Harry raises an eyebrow at him. "A well-practiced maneuver, Mr. Stark," she comments.

"Call me Howard, please, Miss...?"

"Potter," she answers. "Hariel Potter. Call me Harry."

"An unusual name," Stark comments. Harry laughs lightly.

"My mum was sure I was going to be a boy, so my parents decided to name me Harry. And when I turned out to be a girl, they had no girl name ready. Dad wanted to just name me Harriet, but mum vehemently refused. They settled for Hariel eventually." Harry smiles sheepishly.

"And would your parents be here somewhere?" Stark asks. Hariel suddenly remembers that she looks like a blind teenager who definitely shouldn't be alone in a place like this.

"Ahh," she says softly. "No. They died when I was young."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Stark answers immediately. "So who are you here with?"

Not so easily distracted, is he? Harry sighs. "My friend had an emergency," she lies. "They had to leave in a hurry, but I wanted to stay."

"Well then," Stark says. "Would you allow me to show you around, Miss Harry?"

Harry blinks in surprise. "That's... that's really nice of you. But, uh, what would the press say? I mean, I don't mind, but-"

"I don't mind either," Starks says with good humour. He grabs her hand and puts it on his arm. "Shall we?"

A surprised laugh escapes Harry. "We shall."

The rest of the evening is a bit of a blur. Howard Stark shows her the best attractions, explains to her how things work, tells her of ideas that he has that blow her mind. She certainly has never heard of anything called the 'Arc Reactor' before. In turn, she can contribute her own ideas, which are really things she knows are eventually going to be developed in the future. They continue their discussion over dinner and until late in the evening. Harry finds herself incredibly disappointed when Howard gets a call and has to leave on urgent business, but perhaps it's for the best. A lasting friendship is impossible after all, with her situation.

Nevertheless, the evening opens up a craving for companionship in Harry. So she makes an effort to go out more, to get to know people in her neighbourhood. When she's on a job, she makes it a point to visit hospitals in the area and heal patients, to help people where she can.

And that is how she ends up in a hospital in Wisconsin talking a woman named Julie Coulson through giving birth just like she once did Hermione, because the husband is hours away at work and couldn't be reached through the phone. Hours later, she is glad she stayed.

"Hello, little Phil," Julie coos to the child in her arms.

Hariel hugs herself, feeling a distant pain in her chest. All her life, she'd wanted to have a family, to have children of her own.

"Would you like to hold him?" Julie asks her kindly. Harry nods, a lump in her throat. A nurse kindly helps her position her arms and stands close, just in case, and then little Phil is placed in her arms. Harry can feel the flutter of his energy, the warmth of his tiny soft body.

This. This is the reason she agreed to Death's deal. This is what she wants for herself one day.

"Aww, he's smiling!" the enthusiastic nurse gushes. Harry hears the click of a camera.

"What does he look like?" Harry asks softly, a tiny smile on her face as the nurse describes the baby. Julie occasionally throws a comment in. And while they talk, Harry draws runes for protection on Phil's forehead with her finger. She knows she'll probably never see him again, she knows these people are perfectly ordinary and would probably run screaming if they knew what she is, what she _does_ as Death's Soul Collector. But it doesn't matter. If Harry could give every child in the world magical protection, she'd do it in a heartbeat.

"Robert and I haven't decided on a middle name yet," Julie rambles. "Nothing sounds quite right. We've thought about naming him after one of our grandfathers, but-"

"James," slips from Harry's lips.

"Huh?" Julie makes.

"Phil James Coulson," she sounds out and smiles. Then feels heat rise in her cheeks. "I'm sorry, it's not my place to-"

"I like it," Julie interrupts. "Phil James Coulson. Thank you, Hariel. You're a good girl."

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ-

Harry's activities don't go unnoticed. To HYDRA, Howard Stark is a person of interest and monitored as closely as is possible without raising suspicion. When several gossip magazines publish articles about the man in question escorting a young woman who just happens to be blind and fit the description of one Hariel Potter - a woman of unknown affiliations with a set of supernatural abilities who had interfered in HYDRA's affairs twice, and who also doesn't seem to be aging...

HYDRA decides to act.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ-

It's the winter of 1967 and Harry is on yet another job. She has now been dimensionally displaced for seven years. Some days, it's hard for her to remember what her loved ones look like. But she has her charm bracelet with the charms her friends gave her as a goodbye to remind her of what they were like. How being with them was like coming home. Harry may never be able to see them again, but as long as she _remembers_ , she won't have _lost_ them.

Seven years down. Forty-three to go.

Merlin. She ought to get a hobby. Studying runic magic like she'd been doing the past two years won't cut it. Though some good had come of it, she thinks, as she absentmindedly flexes her fingers which are covered by comfortable gloves. These gloves have several features, both for combat and comfort. But her favourite is this: The runes imbued in them will transform any script into braille under her fingers, and revert the transformation once her fingers leave the paper. It finally solves the problem of her reading in public, now she can sit in a café with a nice book and sunglasses on her nose or a cap pulled low to hide her eyes, and no one will be the wiser of her blindness. No longer does she have to ask waiters to recite their menus, now she can read herself. It makes her life much more comfortable.

Finding a hobby... the things Harry once enjoyed doing have become difficult. Flying because her eyesight is gone - she can still do it with the aid of her spells, but it's complicated and the best thing about it used to be the feeling of leaving all her troubles behind on the ground when she took off and saw the world grow smaller below her, and now she can't see a thing when she flies. She used to enjoy teaching too, not regularly or anything, but she'd hold seminars for aurors or for students at Hogwarts. But in this world, there are no students for the things she could teach.

She could learn to play an instrument. She always wanted to, but never found the time. Hermione's daughter Rose had learned to play the piano, and Harry had loved listening.

Yes. Learning to play the piano would be nice. She'd look for a teacher when this job was done, but only if she hadn't broken any of her bones until then from slipping on the ice and snow covered ground. Siberia in winter is not a fun place to be, even in a larger city like Omsk. Harry is just glad for the warming charms woven into her parka and trousers - this time, she had forgone the dressing-in-local-fashions part of her job, mainly because the thick skirts women seem to wear here would drive her insane. She'd trip over the hems all the time and any stealth would be lost anyway. But to be fair, in this snow it's impossible to sneak around no matter what she wears. Harry is half-tempted to pull out her Firebolt Thirteen and just fly to wherever she needs to be. The only thing stopping her is the heavy snowfall which is seriously messing with her echolocation spells. She's already resorted to using the _Homenum Revelio_ spell field around her, like she did at the Stark Expo three years ago. But she's still forced to cling to house walls to avoid falling over, because _she can't see the ground and it's way too slippery_.

"Stupid snow!" she mutters disgruntledly. "A hippogriff for a snowplow! And thank Merlin for _Impervius_ -charms!"

Finally she arrives at her destination, a small house in a quiet neighbourhood. Harry really couldn't care less, as long as she gets out of the damned snowfall that makes her feel like she is _really_ blind. Once she gets home, she won't rest until she's modified the echolocation spells to not be influenced by the weather.

A quick _Alohomora_ gets her into the house. She senses only one person inside, and she hears an old woman's voice softly singing. Harry breathes a sigh of relief. Old people are easier.

Harry follows the voice and finds the singing woman doing laundry. And then the singing cuts off, and the woman sways on her feet before she falls to the ground. A stroke, Harry thinks numbly, or a seizure, she is no trained healer, she can't tell. Harry hurries to the woman's side, trying to offer what little comfort she can give. It takes five minutes until it's over.

Later, when Harry leaves the house, she is sorely tempted to just apparate back to Grimmauld Place. But the stubborn part of her brain insists on going to the hospital and see if there are people she could help. And perhaps she should leave an apparition port? If she ever has to come here again, she'd rather not travel for ages with Transsiberian Railway again.

"Freeze!" a voice startles her. She quickly expands the range of her _Homenum Revelio_ field around her, her mind analysing the situation.

Five people, in a circle around her. She hadn't noticed them, too distracted by the weather. The language spoken was English, with an American accent.

"Miss Potter, you're under arrest. Come quietly," that same voice says harshly.

Harry is gobsmacked. What in the world is happening?! Nothing she has done warrants an arrest, aside from the breaking and entering _which almost no one ever noticed_! And these people have no authority to arrest her on Russian soil!

"Who are you?" she asks quietly, surreptitously adjusting her stance. These people, the way they've circled her - Harry is certain they have weapons levelled at her. "What are you arresting me for?"

It's not like she's worried. She's a damn good witch and immortal to boot. Granted, her portkey won't work in this region with the weather anomalies, and over the long distance using it is risky in the first place. But she doubts she'll need it. They have no idea what she's capable of.

"We are the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. You are wanted for questioning," the man says pompously. "I suggest you come quietly, otherwise we will have to use force, Miss."

Harry notes several different things. First of all, the named organisation has the nifty acronym S.H.I.E.L.D.

It's entirely Hermione's fault that she notices this. In her time, Hermione had founded quite a few charity organisations, the notorious ones being S.P.E.W. ("Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare") and P.M.S. ("Protection of Muggle Society"). And then there were L.U.N.C.H. (Ron's favourite), S.H.O.E., and D.O.O.M. Harry had been a member in all of them.

The second thing she notices is that the man never stated what their homeland was.

The third thing, there is no mention of what she is being questioned for.

Fourth, they want her alive.

Fifth. They want her to come quietly.

Well!

She has always, _always_ wanted to pull a Dumbledore. Granted, she doesn't have a phoenix available, but she can improvise.

"Well, the game is up," she quotes with a peaceful smile on her face. "Would you like a written confession from me or will a statement before these witnesses suffice?"

Confused silence. Harry wants to burst into giggles, but she's too busy trying to remember how the rest of it went. She kind of forgot what Fudge ranted when he tried to arrest Dumbledore back in fifth year. It was a long time ago, after all.

"Cut the games!" a man behind her barks. "Hands up!"

"Ah," she says. "Yes. Yes, I thought we might hit that little snag."

That was how it went, right?

"Snag?" another man repeats dumbly. Harry nods sagely.

"You seem to be under the delusion that I am going to - what was the phrase? 'Come quietly.' I am afraid I won't come quietly at all - frankly, I can think of a number of things I'd rather be doing than getting arrested."

She hears the click of the weapon.

"Don't be silly," she laughs. "I'm sure you're excellent at your job, but if you attempt to - er - 'bring me in' by force, I will have to hurt you."

 _Click._

" _Protego circumretio!_ " Hariel shouts, spinning once around herself with her wand in her hand. Her magic forms a protective bubble around her that deflects all bullets or tranq darts or whatever they are shooting at her. " _Expelliarmus! Stupor!"_ She hears a man curse as another falls with a dull thud. Snow crunches under hurrying feet, and in a sudden flash of inspiration Harry points her wand at the ground. " _Depulso!_ " Snow blasts toward her opponents. Harry hears them yell and scramble as she does it again and again, followed by spells and curses.

"Retreat!" the leader finally shouts. The only other man left standing is only too glad to obey. "Bring in the Asset!"

The asset? What is that supposed to be? Some sort of weap-

Something impacts her shield. Whatever the men shot before, this is _way_ stronger. Her defense holds, but only barely. She can't counter-attack like this, not without risking her shield breaking. But if she doesn't do something, she'll basically be a sitting duck. Portkeying away is too risky, apparating is out, too - she'd have to drop her shield which would make her way too vulnerable to whoever is shooting at her. And running away with all that snow and ice on the ground is impossible.

Another shot hits her shield and drives her back a step. She's starting to feel the drain on her magic now - after all, she'd had her _Homenum Revelio_ field activated for a while now, then there's the job from earlier, and now the shield takes some power to maintain... But she now knows the direction the shot came from. With an angry growl, she waves her wand and transfigures snow into hundreds of little ice shards that she sends in that direction. For a moment, she thinks it's over.

But then a heavy impact on the ground tells her that someone just jumped from a rooftop - _what?!_ \- and she hears heavy steps approach her in a run, but the spells she sends are evaded without fail. And then her senses pick up the familiar presence that feels like a winter storm and all she can think is _oh shit not him_ when he hits her shield with his metal arm and smashes it to pieces. Her shield, that is, not his arm.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ-

The target is thrown back and lands heavily in a snowdrift. The Asset gives her no time to recover and immediately sets after her. To give her time is to risk her teleporting away.

Potter is a threat to HYDRA. She must be brought in and her strange powers researched so that a defence can be found. Her existence threatens the balance of the world. HYDRA will restore it.

The Asset is doing the world a great service.

The girl that is his mission manages to just throw herself to the side before he can hit her, and scrambles to her feet unsteadily on the slippery ground. She's breathing heavily, and there's a look of fear on her face. She doesn't look like a threat like this, but he saw her moments earlier, standing inside a golden bubble of pure energy, hair whipping around her as she unleashed a storm of colourful blasts at the retrieval team. She is formidable. They hadn't stood a chance.

The Asset, however, does.

Again, he charges her, but this time she stabs the thin piece of wood that she uses as a weapon toward him and what feels like a solid brick wall slams into him and throws him back, right into the snowdrift she herself landed in earlier. But unlike her, he flips in mid-air and lands on his feet, eyes narrowed on the weapon. If he takes that out, she'll be helpless. Snarling, he runs at her again.

Potter flicks her wrist and the stick vanishes. Instead, she clenches her gloved hands into fists and punches the ground. He mentally curses it explodes under her fist, icy shrapnel flying everwhere.

She's magnificent, he thinks. She must be stopped.

He charges straight through the cloud of snow and ice shards, but she's ready for him, her gloved palms, now glowing, lifted at him. For a disappointing moment, he thinks she's surrendering. Then her right hand clenches into a fist and it feels like an invisible hand is grabbing him by the throat. A large throwing motion and he's flying into a house wall., cracks forming at the impact. For a moment, he can't breathe, though that isn't so much because of the impact and has more to do with the image of her petite form standing there, hunched over, face framed by wild black strands, her pale eyes narrowed at him in a fierce expression of defiance, as if she's glaring right into his very soul with her sightless eyes.

The Asset sends a knife straight into her upper thigh. She crumples down with a pained exclamation, fingers pressed on the wound. An attempt to stand up fails, he knew just where to aim in order to destroy her ability to walk. But when he gets up, she thrusts her right hand out at him. He's slammed against the wall once more, but this time, she doesn't let up.

"What the bloody hell do you want from me?!" she yells at him angrily, and the force pressing him into the wall grows with every word. He hears it groan as if it's about to give in. The air is pressed out of his lungs. "What have I ever done to you?! _And who the bloody hell are you?!_ "

He gasps for air. She blinks, and then a horrified look crosses her face. She yanks her hand back as if burned. He slides down the wall, drawing in hurried breaths while she loses her balance and falls on her ass. She yanks the gloves from her hands. "I'm- I didn't mean to do that," she whispers as she stares in his direction. "I'm so sorry."

He draws a gun and points it at her. But when he blinks, an image of her face flashes through his mind, lips pulled into a sad smile, eyes so soft, aimed at _him_ , and his finger won't move to click the safety off, to pull the trigger. It unnerves him, this loss of control. He doesn't know where that image came from. He's _never_ seen Hariel Potter before.

But her eyes now are just as soft and sad as they are in that image.

"Goodbye, Frost," she whispers, and the last thing he sees is a flash of red heading toward him.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ-

Harry lands heavily in the entrance hall of Grimmauld Place No.12. Her legs, the knife wound on the right one still bleeding, fold under the weight of her body, and the disorientation following the travel by portkey - she'd had to break into a house to avoid the complications bad weather causes to portkey magic - does not help. Add to that magical exhaustion... Well. She isn't in the best condition right now.

Her mind is reeling. Why had _he_ been there? Why had those people decided to attack her? And _what in the world_ had she been _thinking_ , giving him a name? Apologising to him? Instead of taking him out, like she should have done, because he's a freaking _assassin_!

"Ugh," she groans, getting to her feet and peeling the gloves off her fingers unhappily. They had worked, but they sucked up magical power like nobody's business. She'd have to adjust the runic arrays on them. She'd also have to do something about her inability to properly navigate in bad weather. And something to make her bulletproof wouldn't be amiss. And meditation. She needed to get that temper under control.

It seems that learning to play piano would need to wait for a bit.

Harry has things to do.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ-

1969\. It's been two years since the debacle in Omsk. She hasn't seen the man she now calls _Jack Frost_ in her mind (she has to call him _something_ ) again, but there have been more incidents in which she was attacked. But she's made herself a charmed necklace that automatically erects a bullet-deflecting shield bubble around her when she comes under fire; and she's improved her gloves, so for the most part, it wasn't too hard to avoid injury or capture. Not exactly easy either, but there hadn't been any real threat to her safety and freedom. There was one time where a warehouse filled up with sour-smelling gas while she was inside, but a bubble-head charm had taken care of that. After that episode though she'd made sure to add a charm to her charm bracelet to prevent herself from falling prey to any gas again.

The job this time takes her to a hospital in Barcelona. Not inside the hospital, though, no. Just outside it, there's a traffic accident. The whole scene is a nightmare. People screaming, crying, the smell of burned metal and rubber, blood and fire. And Harry can't do a bloody thing to help and it kills her inside.

When it's over, all she wants is a quiet place and some peace, but everything inside her balks at the idea of going back to her lonely house where the only sounds would be those of her own making that only seem to make the silence that much louder.

So she doesn't return home and looks for a quiet place in the city instead.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ-

It's a sunny day in the summer of 1969. The streets of Barcelona are crawling with people, and the sweltering heat makes the Asset's clothes cling to him in a way that makes him feel trapped. His mission is already over, but it went on for three days and he's injured and tired. His head hurts like hell, and the noise the people make echoes painfully in his brain. He still has to hold out until midnight until he's picked up. And there is no quiet corner where he can lay low for the rest of the time he has to kill.

In the end, he ducks into a small church tucked into the corner of an alley.

Music is the first thing he registers upon entering. Piano music. He doesn't recognise the piece, he has little to no knowledge on the subject of music, only the bare basics he might need to know to understand a target's habits. But this song makes something in his chest clench. It's a slow song, mournful, longing. It isn't perfectly executed, there seem to be little stumbles in the player's fingers, but it doesn't detract from the music's effect.

He should leave. There is no solitude to be found here. It's too risky staying where he can be seen. The Winter Soldier is a ghost. A phantom in the dark that no one can escape from. He must remain that way. But his feet carry him into the church anyway.

His mind catalogues all entrances and hiding places in an instant. He barely registers the colourful windows and artful decorations. They are of no consequence except for the strategic advantages and disadvantages they potentially offer him or an enemy.

The only enemy here is the piano player. He recognises her from pictures he's been shown. Highly dangerous, he's been told. To be captured alive. Level S threat, with supernatural abilities that Dr. Zola believes can be researched and harnessed. Death follows wherever this seemingly ageless woman goes.

The Death Bringer doesn't look like any of that. At the moment, she's just a girl playing piano. The image of her sitting in front of the instrument, eyes closed, the light falling through the stained glass of the church windows behind her; it makes his fingers itch as if to reach for something, but he doesn't know quite what. So he reaches for a gun instead. She just plays on, not even noticing the gun levelled at her.

The safety clicks off. The small noise startles her. The music cuts off, and he feels relieved.

" _Frost_ ," Potter breathes. She slowly gets up, turning to him.

He shoots. The tranquiliser dart speeds at her and then bounces off of a force field surrounding her. A necklace around her neck glows.

She frowns at him, head tilted to the side. "You're injured," she says.

He switches the tranquilising gun for a grenade. He doubts her force field will hold up to that.

She takes a step back, raises her hands. "Look, I don't want to fight. I doubt you want to, either," she insists. "I'm tired, you're injured, this is a church, people aren't supposed to fight in church. So can we just... talk? Or not fight? I'll leave-"

He throws the grenade. Her pale green eyes widen, but then a determined expression overtakes her features. The force field vanishes, and her hand shoots forward and snatches the grenade right out of the air as if she'd spent her whole life practicing it.

Her hand glows for a moment and the grenade turns into a golden orb with wings that unfold and start fluttering. When she lets go, the thing takes off and starts zooming around the church, and Potter stands there with a wistful smile on her face, head tilted as she listens to the small wings beat. The smile vanishes and is replaced by a frown when she turns back to him.

He reaches for his army knife. Firearms obviously had no effect, but in close combat she wouldn't stand a chance.

" _Expelliarmus_!" she shouts, and the knife is ripped from his fingers and flying toward her. She catches it just as expertly as she did the grenade and throws it behind her. It slides under a bench, far out of his reach. It doesn't even make him hesitate as he lunges at her. Her force field snaps back into existence, but it collapses under the force of his artificial arm's punch, and Potter stumbles back with a cry. His body smashes into hers and they both crash to the floor. His ribs protest painfully at the impact, but he ignores it as he grabs her wrists with one hand and uses the other to grab her throat, holding her down. A knee is wedged threateningly into her stomach, making her unable to even attempt to get up.

He takes his hand off her throat so he can knock her unconscious. His arms is raised - and freezes. His muscles refuse to move, _something_ paralysing him. He growls as Potter manages to extract one wrist from his grip and takes care not to lose skin-contact with him as she cautiously slithers out from under him. His eyes widen as nimble fingers pull off his face mask, reach for a spot under his chin, and press down.

He loses consciousness almost immediately.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ-

When he comes to, it's dark. He's still in the church, though now he's lying on a bench. He rolls off it, finding cover and drawing his gun in one smooth motion.

Movement from the corner of his eye. Without a second thought, he shoots.

With a metallic noise, the small golden ball falls to the ground, wings crippled. It rolls a few steps before it bumps into the steps to the altar and comes to a stop. With a soft cheeping noise whatever made the thing move vanishes from it and it turns into a piece of mangled metal.

Silence. Nothing more happens. He's alone in the church. The Death Bringer is long gone. And he's almost certainly late for his rendez-vous. Scowling, he gets up. And notes that all his aches and injuries are gone as if they'd never been there.

His army knife, the one he threw earlier, lies on the piano, the blade glinting in the moonlight.

He grabs it and the piece of metal that was once a grenade and leaves the church with angry steps, rage curling in his chest. He'd been bested in combat, he, the Asset, the Winter Soldier. The Death Bringer had taken his control over the situation, over his very body, away. And when he'd been helpless and vulnerable, she had _healed_ him.

It pisses him right off. The emotion feels foreign. He shouldn't even have it. Emotions distract from missions, and missions are all that matter. Clearly, the Death Bringer did _something_ to him while he was unconscious.

He'd have his whole body ripped open if only to get it out of him. It _hurt._

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ-

Hariel sits heavily down in her favourite armchair once she returns home.

She had always been a rather independent individual or tried to be anyway, with friends like Ron and Hermione it was kind of hard to take everything on by herself.

Normally, she would be the very last person to admit she has a problem...

But boy does she have a problem now.

Not only had she _not_ delivered Jack Frost to the authorities or done anything to neutralise the threat he represents to her in particular and people in general, no, she'd gone and healed him and made sure he was comfortable before leaving.

And worse even still – a part of her had wanted to take him with her. And _that_ seemed like a bad idea all around.

But so sue her, she'd had an awful day and had just wanted _some_ company and she'd even have taken his, if only he hadn't started shooting at her. And even then, he'd been a distraction and that was what she needed.

"Merlin, I'm an idiot," she groans into her hands.

Clearly, something needed to be done about the matter of Jack Frost.

But hell if Harry has any idea as to what.

For the first time in _decades,_ Hariel Potter is well and truly way out of her depth.


End file.
